Among other things, we came to talk of the Nautilus's circumstances, aground in the same strait where Captain Dumont d'Urville had nearly miscarried.
Then, pertinent to this:
"He was one of your great seamen," the captain told me, "one of your shrewdest navigators, that d'Urville!
He was the Frenchman's Captain Cook.
A man wise but unlucky!
Braving the ice banks of the South Pole, the coral of Oceania, the cannibals of the Pacific, only to perish wretchedly in a train wreck!
If that energetic man was able to think about his life in its last seconds, imagine what his final thoughts must have been!"
As he spoke, Captain Nemo seemed deeply moved, an emotion I felt was to his credit.
Then, chart in hand, we returned to the deeds of the French navigator: his voyages to circumnavigate the globe, his double attempt at the South Pole, which led to his discovery of the Adelie Coast and the Louis–Philippe Peninsula, finally his hydrographic surveys of the chief islands in Oceania.
"What your d'Urville did on the surface of the sea," Captain Nemo told me,
"I've done in the ocean's interior, but more easily, more completely than he.
Constantly tossed about by hurricanes, the Zealous and the new Astrolabe couldn't compare with the Nautilus, a quiet work room truly at rest in the midst of the waters!"
"Even so, Captain," I said, "there is one major similarity between Dumont d'Urville's sloops of war and the Nautilus."
"What's that, sir?"
"Like them, the Nautilus has run aground!"
"The Nautilus is not aground, sir," Captain Nemo replied icily.
"The Nautilus was built to rest on the ocean floor, and I don't need to undertake the arduous labors, the maneuvers d'Urville had to attempt in order to float off his sloops of war.
The Zealous and the new Astrolabe wellnigh perished, but my Nautilus is in no danger.
Tomorrow, on the day stated and at the hour stated, the tide will peacefully lift it off, and it will resume its navigating through the seas."
"Captain," I said,
"I don't doubt—"
"Tomorrow," Captain Nemo added, standing up, "tomorrow at 2:40 in the afternoon, the Nautilus will float off and exit the Torres Strait undamaged."
Pronouncing these words in an extremely sharp tone, Captain Nemo gave me a curt bow.
This was my dismissal, and I reentered my stateroom.
There I found Conseil, who wanted to know the upshot of my interview with the captain.
"My boy," I replied, "when I expressed the belief that these Papuan natives were a threat to his Nautilus, the captain answered me with great irony.
So I've just one thing to say to you: have faith in him and sleep in peace."
"Master has no need for my services?"
"No, my friend.
What's Ned Land up to?"
"Begging master's indulgence," Conseil replied, "but our friend Ned is concocting a kangaroo pie that will be the eighth wonder!"
I was left to myself; I went to bed but slept pretty poorly.
I kept hearing noises from the savages, who were stamping on the platform and letting out deafening yells.
The night passed in this way, without the crew ever emerging from their usual inertia.
They were no more disturbed by the presence of these man–eaters than soldiers in an armored fortress are troubled by ants running over the armor plate.
I got up at six o'clock in the morning.
The hatches weren't open.
So the air inside hadn't been renewed; but the air tanks were kept full for any eventuality and would function appropriately to shoot a few cubic meters of oxygen into the Nautilus's thin atmosphere.
I worked in my stateroom until noon without seeing Captain Nemo even for an instant.
Nobody on board seemed to be making any preparations for departure.
I still waited for a while, then I made my way to the main lounge.
Its timepiece marked 2:30.
In ten minutes the tide would reach its maximum elevation, and if Captain Nemo hadn't made a rash promise, the Nautilus would immediately break free.
If not, many months might pass before it could leave its coral bed.
But some preliminary vibrations could soon be felt over the boat's hull.
I heard its plating grind against the limestone roughness of that coral base.
At 2:35 Captain Nemo appeared in the lounge.
"We're about to depart," he said.
"Ah!"
I put in.